Chapter 45

Jason wanted to ask. He did not know how to say: did you just tell me the truth, and what exactly is that truth, and are you lonely, and can I help? Would you let me help, when you said it in exactly the right way to guarantee that I wouldn’t take it seriously?

Colby, standing beside him in the elevator, yawned, stretched, and ran a hand through that hair, rumpling it up more, fingers tugging at post-swim tangles. He did not look like someone suffering from hidden sorrow and isolation. Jason wasn’t sure what to do.

He shuffled feet. Shifted weight. Tried to be less aware of his own breadth and height, versus that water-nymph messy elegance.

Floor twenty-two. Twenty-four.

Twenty-six; and there they both were. Colby waved a hand at him, evidently suggesting that Jason exit first, and managed to drop his room key while doing so. Jason lunged. Caught it. “Here.”

“Oh—thank you. It’ll be a miracle if I manage not to lose at least one, during this production…”

“You do that a lot?”